Sunday, October 21, 2012

Are the eyes of the Lord still looking back and forth across
the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him? When the
Son of Man comes will He find faith on the earth? My answers to both of those
are a resounding YES!

In all honesty, I have been through a lot in my tenure here
on planet earth, yet I can say from the depths of my soul that It is Well! Whatever the enemy has meant for my harm God
has used it for His good.I was sitting
in my kitchen floor earlier thinking some things through and how thankful I am
that along the way I have known the Lord in ways I could never have known Him
apart from suffering.We become so
afraid of the unknown and the what-ifs that we can become paralyzed and waste
our life here always trying to play it safe.Some decisions we have to make are life altering and they are hard yet
they have to get made.Just like Gods
chosen people.He pulled them up by
their scrawny necks (literally) and led them out of their land of slavery and
they suffered from unbelief and fear and their carcasses fell in the wilderness
and they never got to go into their promised land. They did not take hold of
the milk and honey!They wavered, they
grumbled, they complained, and the bottom line was that they lost sight of how
Great their God was and instead had their eyes on their circumstances or their
enemies.When we don’t fix our gaze on
seeking first His kingdom…we too will tend to focus on circumstances and begin
to despair.Another danger as we are on
pilgrimage to our heavenly Jerusalem is to put your hope in man.Let me assure you of this: YOU WILL BE LET
DOWN MISERABLY if you haven’t figured that out already.Don’t let people trip you up because we live
in a fallen world and you will have a big fat bag of excuses as to why you
didn’t live full throttle for God during your time here if people are getting
in the way of it.I mean look no further
than Adam and Eve…I can hear him in his best whiney voice as he points his
finger toward Eve (hear me pinching my nose shut while I say this) “…but God,
the woman You gave me, she made me do it!”PLEASE!!!!!It’s high time we
quit comparing ourselves to others and blaming others for why we are the way we
are and take some of the shackles that are inhibiting us from being able to run
the race that has been marked out for us and let those weights fall to the
flipping ground and stay.I get the fact
that so many people are living in addictive sin.Yet when you go to your meetings and life is
all about what you shouldn’t do and you get a misplaced focus…you are setting
yourself up to be the one who sees the wet paint-DO NOT TOUCH sign and what do
you do? You touch it!It’s our nature.
Knowing where we are weak and making a battle plan for that and being
accountable to others…that’s a different story.Letting what you did (sin) and what you shouldn’t do, define your every
waking moment is not going to produce lasting change because what you have to
have is a new heart and a renewed mind and you can’t get it if you are wallowing
around in the mire of what you did in the past.You won’t taste and see that the Lord is good and won’t learn to love
Him with all that is within in you if your whole focus is on your addiction.The addiction then defines you instead of God
defining you and changing you with His word.We need more then just addiction meetings while they are good.We need to be going after THE Rabboni and
learning what we can through His word.It will change us and make us MISERABLE to be the dog returning to its
vomit.That’s what will change us!God on the throne as we see our own sin in
the mirror and His word will be our freedom as it kills our flesh. We tend to focus on the one unmet need, the
one thing we think will make us happy, and those things rob us of what all we
have been so richly blessed with.As I
was going over some different turning points in my life it bolstered my faith
even more because there have been times in my life where I’m talking I had no
clue what I was going to do and God showed up.Times where I would tithe my $30 and not have a clue what I was going to
do to make ends meet and while there wasn’t some huge monetary prospering,
there was a prospering in my soul.Trials that have literally turned to gold!The gold of knowing the One in Whom I believe
even though I can’t see Him. I’ve learned through suffering that the next time
I face this or that I want to do it with some faith because the Lord has
brought me a mighty long way.What if
the Beth Moore’s, James MacDonalds, Erwin Lutzers (just to name a few of my
heroes in the faith) where scared to death to do what God called them to do and
didn’t do it? Well, we sure would have missed out!That is a vast understatement for me.They have brought me up in the Lord.I have no clue where I’d be when there was no
Titus 2 woman in sight taking me under her wing.It was years of bible study that have taught
me how to love the Lord and look to Him.I shudder to think where I’d be without all that these men and women
have poured into my soul.So again I
have learned not to live in so much fear when it comes to stepping out and
believing God.It doesn’t mean ease…but
the riches you will gain from what seems the black of night aren’t worth
comparing to just living at the status quo.I’m not just making this stuff up!If you will abandon your ideas of the peachy little cushy life you
should have and just throw your hands up you will never be the same. So while I
am over here in the thick of it…I look at you and say sister/brother…walk in the
word!Let the Lord strengthen your
heart.Make your ONE THING Him!Seek Him with all that you have.He will be found by you.Go forward with some courage and you will be
shocked that as you stay in the word by faith…the very things that you thought would
kill you just might be what heals you.He is so worthy.His word
works.May we abandon ourselves to Him.I guarantee you this: You are a lot stronger
than you think! The freedom that comes from making it to the other side of what you thought you could never make it through will teach alright! Everytime I start to panic all I have to do is jog down memory lane over the rocks of rembrance that are along the ol' timeline. Places where God showed Himself strong on my behalf. Or things like the death of a child, I never thought I could get through that sort of thing and I did and I'm whole. Maybe some of us need to step back a tad from being constantly torn to shreds by the fat mouth of the Lion...the accuser of the brethren. Maybe we need to spend some time in the word gaining God's thoughts toward us and not let man or the enemy continue to be the loudest voice in our head but let His word dwell richly in us and change us so that we operate as the blessed children of God and align our lives to His word. I know I'm miserable when I'm not right with Him. Once you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good...all else while some may be good, is a cheap imitation. It won't satisfy you. Let's quit squandering anymore time meandering around in mediocrity. If God is for us, who can be against us?

About Me

This Psalm about sums me up. I cried to Him from the depths. He saved me from myself and my enemy. If He kept a record of sins...I could not stand. He is so merciful and forgiving to all who call on Him. Praise Him!
Psalm 130
A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.